Thank you for your thoughtful report
of October 15th. I appreciate the time and effort that each of you
have committed to this important task, and I am very pleased that the work of
the committee is underway. As you know, this is an important issue to me, and
one in which Brown has demonstrated national leadership. I expect that to
continue, and the committee will be an essential element of our
success.

There are two issues presented to me
for decision by your report. One is whether Brown should remain as a member of
the Fair Labor Association (FLA), and the other is whether Brown should join the
Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). The recommendation of the committee is that
Brown should continue supporting the efforts being made by the FLA and should
consider supporting the WRC also. Although I endorse this recommendation and
adopt it as the position of the University, I do so with some important
qualifications.

It should be very clear to everyone
that I do not find the progress made to date by the FLA to be satisfactory. The
fact that they have not fully complied with the principles we announced on April
21, 1999 troubles me. However, I was moved by the arguments Pharis Harvey made
during the course of his visit to Brown last week. As you state in your report,
Mr. Harvey firmly believes “that the FLA is a credible (albeit still
imperfect) system.” I value Mr. Harvey’s opinion and would agree
with his view on this matter. Thus, for the time being, Brown will remain a
fully committed member of the FLA.

After careful review of the proposed
Worker Rights Consortium, I find myself intrigued by the possibilities it
offers. I concur with some of our students who argue that monitoring would
benefit from a degree of competition, and I believe that more rather than less
efforts to improve this pervasive international problem are better.
Accordingly, I am willing to have Brown join the Worker Rights Consortium as a
founding member. However, the University will remain a member only if it becomes clear, through the further development of the consortium and the FLA, that the two organizations can operate in a complementary fashion. It is Brown’s position that both
organizations can be effective and productive, especially if they work together,
and I will look to the leadership of the WRC and the FLA to make this happen.
Furthermore, Brown will closely review our relationships with both organizations
and their performance. Should it ever become necessary for Brown to choose
between the FLA or the WRC, we will choose the organization that makes the
greater effort to work collaboratively with the other and that better preserves
Brown’s ability to make choices that protect the workers’ rights in
accordance with our Code of Conduct.

What should not be lost in our
national discussion of these issues are the rights of the workers that make the
apparel bearing the Brown logo. I urge all students, administrators and
faculty, to work together on policies and practices that will achieve the goal
of protecting those rights. Collaborative efforts to do so will be much more
effective than adversarial positioning.